Atlus has announced that they will be releasing The Dark Spire for the Nintendo DS on March 10 of 2009. If you haven’t heard of the game, the reason is because most people haven’t heard of Atlus’ games since they’re insanely niche. This one isn’t any different; it’s a western style, dungeon crawling RPG that plays so old school that there is literally a text-only “classic” mode that players can enjoy. The game can actually be switched over to a mode where everything is presented with words and dotted line pictures. This once again confirms that Atlus is immensely awesome.

If you do know who Atlus is then you probably played their cult hit Etrain Odyssey and know that they make some damn good dungeon crawling RPGs. Dark Spire is actually a localization of Genmu no Tou to Tsurugi no Okite, a game only released in Japan. It will take players on an adventure through a tower of mist and shadow to find a powerful jewel that is possessed by the evil Tyrhung. If you play modern style you get to see what he looks like, if you go old school you get to read about what he looks like. The latter part of that shouldn’t fill me with such glee, but it does.

The Dark Spire approaches. It is retro-tastic. You select money. You pay $29.99.